Purpose of Political discussion?

Being young, naive, and relatively uninformed...I begin looking for an online discussion board where I can learn the views of others, come to understand them, and perhaps develop a more comprehensive understanding of the problems that besiege us as a society.

I type "political discussion board" into Google, and you are the first website on the list and damn! you look good.

Naturally, I am quite ecstatic as I eagerly sign up and begin to read.

Unfortunately, after reading post after post, thread after thread, and even switching to other topics besides politics, I can't seem to find many arguments that are clear, powerful, and informative.

There are flashes of good stuff: acute observations, informed statements, and unabashed questions.

But those flashes pale in comparison with the multitude of quick insults, broad generalizations, and flippant remarks.

The problems in your family, your community, your nation, and your world are still here. Besieging you, your crazy environmentalist wacko neighbor, your uptight conservative asshole uncle, and all the rest of us.

How are you going to help solve these problems if you care more about being right than about learning?

Sure I'm an outsider. A "troll". You don't know me, I don't know you. Maybe I just missed all the good threads, or I got unlucky with the ones I read. Unfortunate for me then, and no loss to you.

So I guess I just have one question I want answered: What should be the purpose of a political discussion board?

If the purpose of a discussion board is to merely express myself, then I guess I've done just that.

1. Find a board where administrators and moderators do that: Administer and moderate. If they participate and take positions, there is no neutrality or objectivity in discussions in which they have staked a position. It's a general rule for a lot of discussion forums.

2. Find a board where name calling and personal insults are moderated and disciplined. On boards where this is allowed, you find large numbers of people who have been disciplined elsewhere for insulting and making personal attacks. I'd be willing to bet, after only a little while here, that a lot of the members here have been rejected on more civil message boards.

3. Take note of any kind of "points" system or seniority the board uses. A lot of boards use these. It makes for a clique type atmosphere and is not generally condusive to acceptance of new people or ideas.

4. A bord that requires a membership fee often will weed out trolls. Even if it is a small fee, it discourages people from joining just to prod for fights.

On the other hand, if you don't mind name calling and obscenity, any old board will do. You can actually learn a lot about people by how civilized they are when left to their own discretion. You won't make any kind of difference in places like that but you can earn reassurance that the representative majority in any atmosphere are the loud, obnoxious jerks you thought they were.

It's jumped into my head at times that some are so belligerent as to be unwilling to abandon clearly inaccurate positions even when mountains of evidence are thrown into their faces...but honestly, there's greater worth in convincing the silent observers, and for some, merely sharpening arguments that would be better utilized in other areas,

So I guess I just have one question I want answered: What should be the purpose of a political discussion board?

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Whatever you decide make it. Political discussion is like the rock of Sisyphus; nobody is going to break any ground or drastically change his or her opponents' positions, and you'll nearly always end up where you started in any given argument. Like every board, we're caught in a cycle wherein the same discussants debate the same issues ad infinitum. Most of us are able to derive pleasure from it in spite of its pointlessness.

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